Giving Up Coke
October 17, 2008 by dr. lam · 3 Comments
I have heard a lot of reports out there that various diet sodas can actually increase your weight and also be truly unhealthy for you. As part of my EO (entrepreneur organization)’s monthly goals, i established this month that i would minimize my consumption of Diet Coke as much as possible.
It is amazing how tastes change if you want them to. I LOVE DIET COKE. I thought that one thing in the world that I could never give up would be diet coke. I would rather die. I actually like it more than regular coke. However, I have now been drinking unsweetened iced espresso in the morning, unsweetened ice tea for lunch, and sparkling water (with at times a little cranberry juice) for dinner. Listen, I still need my caffeine.
Now if there is no other option at the dining establishment, I will have some Diet Coke. I am not a monk about it. What is fascinating to me is how we can easily adapt our tastes. If I sat there forcing down unsweetened tea or coffee and going “Yuck!” every day, the habit would not stick. However, I LIKE IT NOW! That is really weird for me to even say.
I remember about 20 years ago when I was traveling in Europe, there was NO Diet Coke. At the time, they only had regular Coke so that was all I drank (Now, they have Diet Coke but they call it Coca Cola Light). By the time I got back stateside, the taste of Diet Coke made me sick. I loved only regular Coke. It is astounding how our taste buds can easily change. That is why if you guys are adventurous, feed your kids something that they might not otherwise eat. I have found that parents who are not adventurous in their palate pass those limitations on to their children. Okay, that is another blog. Sorry to offend.
I have heard it say that it takes 21 days to break a habit or to establish one. I think ultimately if you hate it, nothing will stick. Somehow, my taste buds now prefer unsweetened tea and coffee. Weird.
Blinking Beauty
October 10, 2008 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
I was attending a lecture by my colleague in St. Louis 2 weeks ago and I really liked how he envisioned the facial aging process. He likened it to the book, Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell. For those who have not read Blink or Gladwell’s other phenomenal book, The Tipping Point, I would highly recommend both reads.
Gladwell’s thesis is that we judge another individual or almost anything in a visceral blink of an eye. It does not take 5 minutes to figure out something but we can tell almost immediately about something and we are typically correct in our initial assumptions, which are also very hard to shake if we are wrong.
That is how we view each other when it comes to aging. We can almost instantaneously tell if the other person is older, younger, attractive, or unattractive. We can tell in a blink of an eye from 10 feet away. However, when people come in to fix something, usually they are focused on the minutiae that no other human being can even see. In particular, because women put makeup on, the tiny lines around the mouth (that no one can see. believe me.), the crepiness of the upper eyelid, the dot on the right cheek, the tiny asymmetry of the upper lip, etc. are on the top of the wish list for correction even though after paying all the money to do those things nothing really looks any better.
Instead, I truly believe that overall facial shape (geometry) and proportion is how we make a judgment about another person in a blink of the eye. So, when people come to see me, I would rather help them create a favorable blink impression on all those around them than try to fix the minor flaws that only they can see. If you want to understand how we view aging geometrically, you can watch the first part of my video lecture I gave 2 weeks ago in St. Louis that discusses in my opinion an original thesis on how we see aging. Here is the link to the video.
Btw, a patient of mine told me that Gladwell’s new book is coming out in a few weeks so I checked it out on Google, and it’s called Outliers, about how successful people are successful not just because of who they are but where they are from (at least that is what Amazon says).
LFP Welcomes a New Addition to the Family: Elizabeth!
October 9, 2008 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
Our beloved Vassi just gave birth on Tuesday, October 7th, 2008, to a healthy and beautiful new baby named Elizabeth Grace, weighing in at a magical 7.77 pounds. Her family at LFP would like to extend Vassi and Stravko (aka Zak) our most heartfelt congratulations to their new addition! If you would like, click here to watch my visit to the new bundle of joy!
Embracing the Orient
October 8, 2008 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
Reflexology Foot Chart
As a western trained physician who is very methodical in his scientific thinking, I have always been skeptical of “Oriental medicine”. Now that I have opened a spa that focuses on marrying the best from the East and the West, I have gradually loosened my narrow grip on my perceived reality. I have tried in the past to view my wellness concept to be broader than what we know in the West. However, naturopathic doctors and holistic doctors shun coming anywhere near an Occidental physician and vice versa. Fortunately, I was able to find the best of both worlds by having western-trained M.D.s who embrace naturopathic components in my anti-aging and vitality center.
As part of my weekly spa ritual, I really have been exploring the best of what the East has to offer. The thing that I really love now is reflexology. The idea of reflexology for the uninitiate is using pressure points on the foot to relieve bodily ailments that corresponds to nerves that are across the foot. Whenever I get a certain area touched that hurts on my foot, I start to realize how accurate the correlation is to the body part that aches for me. If anything, I get a great foot massage in the process! Even when I was in a hurry at the airport, I got a reflexology treatment over my standard shoulder and hand massage (which is part of reflexology too since the hands and ears can represent part of the body as well.)
I think it could be dangerous to substitute reflexology for treating serious medical conditions but I think it is a great stress reliever and I do believe that it is helping me balance out parts of my body that are not in alignment. I also tried a Shirodhara treatment which is part of Ayurvedic therapy in my spa, which involves dripping oil in different patterns across your forehead to open your “third eye”. Although I don’t know if the touted medicinal values can be of certain benefit to you, I do enjoy the treatment as a relaxing part of a spa experience. Okay, so I don’t believe everything just yet.
Exploring Silicone Part III, Silicone Versus Fat as a Permanent Filler
October 7, 2008 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
The patient on the left is shown AFTER a facelift by another dallas plastic surgeon. On the right the patient is shown one year after a single session of fat transfer to the face and 3 serial injections of silicone into her lips and facial folds.
To conclude this 3 part series on understanding silicone, we should explore how I envision silicone versus fat use in my practice. If I am to perform a permanent filler in someone I would love to know the long-term safety of that product as well as its efficacy. As mentioned before, medical-grade silicone injections have been used for cosmetic enhancement since the 1960s. The first fat transfer was performed in 1898, and the first fat transfer using micro-injections done since the 1970s. Most of the new permanent injectable fillers have only been around a year to 15 years with many of the ones which have been around for 15 years undergoing constant purification, refinement, and other changes due to long-term problems. That does not sound safe to me, and I have no interest in using any other product other than silicone and fat transfer as permanent fillers.
In answering my forum questions, I realize truly how difficult it is to understand when I use one product or the other and why. I will first describe how I use each product and why then offer a short table to have the reader better understand these principles in a synopsis format. First, fat transfer is NOT a bio-inert substance. It is in fact a live “graft”. It survives based on blood supply and can fluctuate due to weight and blood supply take. Therefore, fat transfer should be used in this fashion with respect. I use fat grafting solely for volume contouring of the aging face but not to fix a little scar here or there. By putting fat in entirely asymmetrically you risk that the fat will grow disproportionately. You should not have to worry about that with silicone. Second, fat is very soft and fails in my opinion to make much change in the folds and lines of the face, whereas silicone works much better for that. I think fat transfer also leads to significant prolonged distortion of the lips with high resorption. Therefore, I always have the simple mnemonic “fat is not good for lips and lines” to help my prospective patient understand where fat fails. Interestingly, these are the two areas where most surgeons use fat. I use silicone to fix scars, to augment lips, and to correct folds of the face. Another way to look at it is that I use fat over large areas of the face and silicone over tiny areas of the face.
Over the long-term, subtle changes (typically positive) can occur with each product but for different reasons. With the micro-droplet silicone technique, collagen builds with each treatment so you will see changes after a few months particularly with acne scarring that can help you see positive changes. With fat transfer, remarkable stem cell changes have been witnessed (I have seen it) that shows skin texture improvements, scar reductions, etc.
These two permanent fillers have very distinct qualities, properties, limitations and must be used skillfully, as they are both permanent. Here is a quick summary:
Liquid Silicone Versus Fat Grafting